Notes From the Firing Squad: Just ‘Another Day at the Office’

The AP story we blogged on Tuesday about the Utah man who has been asked to be executed by firing squad was a compelling one, partly due to the details embedded in the story.

The description of the details surrounding the execution were particularly chilling. Wrote AP reporter Jennifer Dobner:

Once the witnesses are in place, the prison warden will open the curtains on the observation room windows. Gardner [the inmate] will be asked for any last words.

Then, after a final check for a stay with the Utah attorney general’s office, comes the order to the executioners, who fire from a distance of about 25 feet.

The gunmen stand behind a wall cut with a gunport, their rifles bench-rested to assure accuracy . . . .

The guns are handed out randomly to the officers. One will be loaded with a blank, so no one will know who fired the fatal shot. By law, the identities of those selected for the firing squad remain secret.

The only question we were left with at the end of this: what’s it like to be an executioner?